The concept behind Au P’tit Maroc, our gentlemanly host wasted no time in telling us, is that its customers should feel at home. “Faites comme chez vous,” he said, indicating that we should find ourselves a comfy spot in which to lounge amid the couches, low tables and stacked pillows of his lavender-walled salon. He informed us that we could pick up our orders at the counter once they had been prepared by his wife, who was busy cooking away behind the curtain that divides the small eating area from the kitchen. The setting is quite intimate and, holding only about a dozen guests easily, indeed very much like eating in a private house.

This tiny shop on a Plateau side street – look for the Moroccan flag waving in the wind – was opened last month by the Aboulfadl family (father, mother and their two children, one of whom is a culinary school graduate). Originally from Casablanca, they conceived it as a showcase for their country’s cuisine. It’s part tea room – mint infusions come in ornate teapots on a shiny tray – and part eat-in boutique, with a few select items displayed on the wooden shelving near the doorway. The colourful selection of olives and pickled vegetables, in jars affixed with pretty labels, are imported from Morocco and used in the dishes created on-site. But the preserved meat called khlii is proudly done in-house – and in the post-refrigeration era, making this traditional, labour-intensive preparation is a culinary badge of honour. Sort of like confit and jerky together, it consists of morsels of dried, spiced veal that are contained in, as the sign above the jars reads, “bovine fat.” Every cuisine has its dare food, and this is one of Morocco’s. You can buy a jar to bring home, as I did, or you can get a taste during the Moroccan brunch service here on weekends, when it’s paired with eggs. That it’s offered is an indication of the commitment the family has to their endeavour, which they hope to grow into a bigger business in the city.

It didn’t take much prompting to get papa Aboulfadl to reveal himself as a man passionate about cuisine done right – a salesman, perhaps, but a salesman of the most serious kind. With a hand gesture that conveyed “exquisite” – lift one arm and freeze your fingers in such a way that intimates, “mere words cannot express …” – he gave us no choice but to start with harira. This is the classic Moroccan soup that’s often part of the Ramadan feast. Jammed with legumes, it’s hearty au bout, but, wonderfully, the effect isn’t heavy. Anyway, it took just one dip of the spoon to understand why he had insisted on serving it to us. The concoction was full of layered tastes: the rich veal base, the chickpeas, the strands of eggs, the blend of cinnamon and other warm spices, and a squeeze of lemon added yet another layer on top of all that. It came with buns (referred to as khobz, or bread) from a local North African bakery. These turned out to be real multipurpose items, good for dipping, picking up and wiping the bowl clean – and, of course, for a meal in the Berber style, you wouldn’t be using utensils.

For mains, we chose from a handful of daily offerings written on whiteboard behind the cash. Among them, couscous is always a contender. “Done the Moroccan way,” our host hastened to specify, noting proudly that the semolina is cooked properly: steamed and fluffed three times in a couscoussier over the bubbling stew. If lamb is often a main character in this cuisine, at P’tit Maroc, Quebec-raised veal is the star. It was at its best in stewed chunks at the base of the tagine, imbued with juices and tender to the touch. It was impossible not to remark on the expert cooking of the vegetables, particularly the carrots – steamed apart, they retained their shape, bright colour and natural taste. (Apparently, they’re also keen on offering couscous complet, or whole-grain couscous, if the Montreal public is up for it.)

An order of kofte brought us a tajine loaded with meatballs of ground veal, in a tomato sauce and topped with chopped egg. Nice homestyle presentation and generous portion (there was an entire army of them), but unfortunately, either the sauce or the meat – or both – was extremely salty. It was the only real letdown. Two chicken dishes I sampled, one with delicious preserved lemon, the other with plumped raisins and cooked-down onions, were very good.

There was no dessert that day, I was told upon inquiring. But our host, so dispirited at not being able to offer us something, found some cookies in the recesses of the kitchen and practically chased us down to give them to us – so a sweet ending all the same.

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